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University of Chicago refuses to divest from Darfur

Jill

Dozens of other universities have pulled their investments out of Sudan because of the ongoing genocide there. But not the University of Chicago:

U of C President Robert J. Zimmer (not to be confused with the far-cooler Robert Zimmerman) is standing firm, stating that divestment from Darfur is “a political issue that do[es] not have a direct bearing on the university.”

As the author of the Nation article states, by investing in Sudan, the University of Chicago already is taking a political stand. And it’s disgusting that they would continue to feed money into a country which is sponsoring genocide. They should be ashamed.

13 thoughts on University of Chicago refuses to divest from Darfur

  2. As a U of C alum, I’m really disappointed. Will be sending a letter to Zimmer and urging my friends to do the same. Grrrrrr.

  3. Wonder whether they dragged their feet on divesting from South Africa as well?

    Yep. I was a student there back in the 1980s. They hadn’t divested by the time I left and I don’t think they ever did. So I can’t say that I’m suprised to find that they’ve got money in Sudan. Disappointed, yes. Suprised, no.

  4. The thing is, if one agrees with the idea of the Kalven Report–a document of quasi-constitutional status at U of C that asserts that the university’s role is to be a home for political and academic debate, but not as an institution take sides–then this isn’t so cut-and-dried. One can invoke the ‘exceptional circumstances’ clause of the report, but even here there’s the problem of whether the means are well-fitted to the end: divestment played a positive role in S.A.; sanctions don’t seem to have helped at all with Cuba.

    If you object to the entire idea of the Kalven Report, fine, but don’t expect the university to listen to arguments coming from that direction. What’s needed is a way to articulate how the university can maintain its ideal of political neutrality while still being a large employer, landowner, and investor. Perhaps it can’t, but I think the ideal is worth striving for.

  5. The idea behind the Kalvin report, the the university should be a place that fosters political debate rather than an institution that takes sides in political debate, might be nice. But it completely obscures the fact that monetary investment is itself already political involvement. No?

  6. As a current student I can say that there is an extremely large movement on campus in favor of divestment. The student newspaper, in particular, has run several pro-divestment pieces (http://maroon.uchicago.edu). And for what it’s worth, the only surviving member of the group that drafted the Kalven report has come out in favor of divestment.

  7. Well, yes and no. Investing is an act that has consequences, though often remote and contingent, on topics of that are ‘political’ insofar as they are matters for political debate and contestation. Just as decisions about how to use the university’s land, and how to act as an employer, concern topics that are obviously political. But there is a difference, I think, between acting ethically as a corporate body (refusing to discriminate even when not prohibited by law, for example, or paying better-than-market benefits at the bottom of the scale, or not fighting unions) and taking symbolic stands *for the purpose of* sending a message. Unfortunately, it’s a very blurry line–‘acting ethically’ really cashes out to something like ‘the morality everyone agrees on, assuming that existing institutions are at least just enough to work within.’ One can make a cogent argument that investing in Darfur isn’t just sending a bad message, but is actively causing evil; that it’s the equivalent of buying dirt-cheap property from, say, a violent gang that is coercing owners into selling. And I think this sort of argument is plausible. But the challenge is to frame it in such a way that it remains consistent with the basic goal of U of C to *not take political stands*, and doesn’t become a rule-swallowing exception. And I think it *is* difficult to articulate decision rules that will get this right; Geoff Stone is right to worry here about slippery-slope effects. Again, I think the Darfur question is an obvious candidate for the ‘exceptional instance’ category, but I can understand institutional arguments against.

  9. Another UofC alumna here. I haven’t verified this for myself (so take this with a grain of salt), but I heard that John Hope Franklin, one of the drafters of the Kalven Report, actually supports divestment. I’ll see if I can find anything more concrete on that.

  10. Irony: The U of C also gave an animus brief in the recent affirmative action case that came before the Supreme Court. But that’s totally non-political, whereas voluntary divestment (because genocide is totally not good for business) is political. Yeah. Sure.

    Signed, one pissed-off alumna who sure as hell isn’t donating until they divest.

  11. Wait: What if all of us pissed-off alumni responded to the University’s solicitations for donations with “As soon as we divest from Sudan”?

  12. a few reference links:

    the site of the main student group on campus working on this, including a lengthy list of signers supporting divestment (including 2/3rds of my dissertation committee, I was happy to see).

    a PDF of the Kalven report, the key document on the matter, according to the University.

    the university’s press release on the amicus brief they filed in the Michigan case which was referenced above.

    Franklin (the lone surviving member of the Kalven committee, is on the record with the Sun Times stating that the genocide should trigger the exceptional circumstances clause.

  13. Back in the day, I could just barely see how divesting from South Africa raised enough of a political issue to distract people from the moral issue involved.

    But Darfur?

    What, exactly, is political about saying, “We will not do business with men who run children down from horseback?”

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